Hey everyone!
New member here, and this is my first post on this forum.
Quick background: I'm a mechanical engineer, EIT to be specific, who also has a passion for CNC machining. I have a couple of years of experience designing, programming, and setting up parts for CNC machining and helped convince my partner at work to jump into the CNC realm with me. We purchased a Haas VF-2SS with all the bells and whistles which we'll be using for general job shop type work to compliment the other manufacturing work our business does (waterjet, press brake, general fabrication, etc.) We'll primarily be machining aluminum, plastics, steel, stainless steel, and maybe the occasional super alloy like titanium, but we'll mostly be working on steels and aluminum.
In our search for good, general shop use tooling we found a vendor local to us who sells Niagara Cutter tooling. Since I'm not super familiar with that brand I figured I'd ask you guys here with more experience a couple of questions.
1. Is Niagara Cutter a good tooling brand?
2. What is the difference between HSS and HSCO (8-8.5% Cobalt content) tooling? I've used carbide tooling almost exclusively and I'm not super familiar with different types of HSS tools. We're only interested in their end mills.
3. Does HSCO tooling have an advantage over HSS tooling, and if so, would it be worth it to purchase the HSCO end mills available locally vs. carbide end mills?
I imagine carbide tooling would be better generally in our machine, but these tools are at a really great discount. I'm trying to find out if they'd be worth it to get or if we should just spend the money on different tooling. Again, this is for general job shop type use.
Thanks so much everyone! I'm looking forward to being a member of this forum!
New member here, and this is my first post on this forum.
Quick background: I'm a mechanical engineer, EIT to be specific, who also has a passion for CNC machining. I have a couple of years of experience designing, programming, and setting up parts for CNC machining and helped convince my partner at work to jump into the CNC realm with me. We purchased a Haas VF-2SS with all the bells and whistles which we'll be using for general job shop type work to compliment the other manufacturing work our business does (waterjet, press brake, general fabrication, etc.) We'll primarily be machining aluminum, plastics, steel, stainless steel, and maybe the occasional super alloy like titanium, but we'll mostly be working on steels and aluminum.
In our search for good, general shop use tooling we found a vendor local to us who sells Niagara Cutter tooling. Since I'm not super familiar with that brand I figured I'd ask you guys here with more experience a couple of questions.
1. Is Niagara Cutter a good tooling brand?
2. What is the difference between HSS and HSCO (8-8.5% Cobalt content) tooling? I've used carbide tooling almost exclusively and I'm not super familiar with different types of HSS tools. We're only interested in their end mills.
3. Does HSCO tooling have an advantage over HSS tooling, and if so, would it be worth it to purchase the HSCO end mills available locally vs. carbide end mills?
I imagine carbide tooling would be better generally in our machine, but these tools are at a really great discount. I'm trying to find out if they'd be worth it to get or if we should just spend the money on different tooling. Again, this is for general job shop type use.
Thanks so much everyone! I'm looking forward to being a member of this forum!